Terry Jones, the swivel-eyed pastor who attracted worldwide notoriety for his threat to burn the Qur'an on the anniversary of September 11, may or may not have a deal. But let's hope he has burst the Qur'an-burning bubble for the rest of America.

Based on his bizarre press conference on Thursday, Jones thinks he struck an agreement to move the site of the Park 51 Muslim cultural centre and mosque away from its current location, which is not very close to the site of the World Trade Centre in New York City.

Latest reports suggest that no such thing was agreed but that won't matter to Jones. This way he gets to save face, extend his 15 minutes of fame a little longer, all without actually burning any Qur'ans. No doubt he'll rail against Muslim perfidy when the mosque doesn't move – but so what?

Jones's threats will be subject to the law of diminishing returns. Next time he threatens to do burn a Qur'an – and I fear there will be a next time – he'll be handled with much more caution by the US media, which has made itself look ridiculous in being outfoxed by the crackpot pastor of a miniscule church in the swamps of Florida.

The most significant news yesterday, prior to Jones's decision to scrap the burning, came from Fox News. The Baltimore Sun's TV critic David Zurawik asked the cable news network if it would show the Qur'an burning. Michael Clemente, senior vice president at Fox News, said it would not cover it, either live, in video or still photography, adding:

"He's one guy in the middle of the woods with 50 people in his congregation who's decided to try, I gather, to bring some attention to himself."

CNN also said it wouldn't show any images of the Qur'an being burned. Then the Associated Press set out some strict guidelines for its staff, stating in an internal memo: "Should the event happen on Saturday, the AP will not distribute images or audio that specifically show Qurans being burned, and will not provide detailed text descriptions of the burning."

Then NBC announced it would film the event but not show live coverage, and decide later on what footage it would use.

All in all, an outbreak of common sense.

By now, though, every crackpot and lunatic in America will have seen Jones's success and be ready to ape it. But their very craziness may be their undoing.

One such group that says it plans to burn some Qur'ans is the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, easily the most hated church in America. For whatever insane doctrinal reasons, the tiny WBC protests outside funerals of US soldiers killed in battle, holding signs saying "God hates fags". They did the same thing at the funeral of former president Gerald Ford. Where ever one or two TV cameras are gathered together, so the WBC will be among them.

These days the WBC's antics get no coverage. In fact, in announcing it was to burn Qur'ans, the WBC said it had already burned some. No one cared. It says it also plans to burn an American flag at the same time (I'm not making this up). No one cares.

Qur'an burning may have stepped into that small set of things that are too crazy even for America.